The Bad Before the Worse
by Citalopram
Summary: Joly's life is falling away from right beneath his feet. Modern AU, Joly/OC friendship. Companion piece to 'Patria is Furry'.


**This is a companion piece to the slightly more light-hearted 'Patria is Furry' story, set primarily between chapter four and five. If you haven't read the first chapters of that, you need to go and do that_ immediately_.**

**May I interest you in listening to the song _Shouldn't Be A Good In Goodbye_ by Jason Walker? The title is taken from it, and it's such a pretty song.**

**Further notes on this one-shot piece will be posted at the bottom.**

**Warnings: serious illness, breakups and lots of sadness. You have been warned.**

**Disclaimer: I do not in any way/shape/form own Les Mis.**

* * *

"Joly, let me in," Her voice called through the door, one hand splayed across the cool dark wood and one gripping the silver door handle in frustration. He had to let her in, or she couldn't help. The shuffling of feet reluctantly neared the door, slowly, slowly. The handle jostled beneath her grasp and finally turned with a _click_ that signalled her entry.

Joly opened the door only a few centimetres; one watery eye watching her warily for a few seconds before swinging the door open and letting her inside.

"Renette," He whispered, his usual cheerfulness all but sucked into the void of betrayal and despair. He looked awful – hair mussed and sticking out from his head, from rubbing it in frustration, a face streaked with tear tracks and pale as the full moon in dead winter. He was the only thing in the apartment to be in such a state, though. Everything was as clean as ever, if not more so for Joly had probably been dealing with his pain by cleaning and sanitizing every inch of the place.

Joly wandered away from his friend to collapse on the sofa, picking up and clutching to him a piece of writing paper that Renette could see had Musichetta's distinct scrawl across it. He crumpled it and smoothed it out across his chest repeatedly as he lay there, staring coldly at the ceiling. It was unnerving to see him, this boy, this man, who was always so full of life and tenderness, to be led as if a discarded rag doll that had been left behind.

Renette dropped her backpack on the floor in the middle of the room and pushed Joly's legs into the cushions so she could perch next to him.

"What happened, Jo-Jo?" His childhood nickname slipped from her lips as if they'd always spoken that word. She'd not called him that since he had become friends with Combeferre in high school. Tenderly, she pushed the hair away from his face; her hand feeling the burn of his skin. No surprise; he was wearing a sweater in an already warm room.

Without a word, he turned his face into the cushions and held the paper he was previously and cathartically scrunching. He wouldn't see her read the paper that turned his life upside down. He wouldn't see her eyes flick over the barely-legible scratch of Musichetta telling him that she and Bousset had left, and thankfully, he wouldn't see how his friend nearly smirked to herself when she realised that she'd been right all along; that their unconventional relationship would fall apart like leaves fall from trees: they would last the spring and summer, but by autumn the cracks would show and in winter, the frost would set in.

In the end, she settled, knowing that Joly needed her to be comforting in this moment, for saying "Oh Joly, I'm so sorry," and gripping his hand in hers.

They had known each other for near two decades - since they were five years old and sharing colouring pencils at school. She'd known him before his phobia of illness, his hypochondria and his OCD has set in after falling in a duck pond and reading a medical encyclopaedia at age eight. She was the one that had been there when he'd met Combeferre at age fifteen and Jehan at eighteen: the rest of his friends followed somewhere after twenty.

Somewhere in all of the fuss and the years that slipped past them, he became a revolutionary; changing the world with his group of misfit toys one day at a time, and she had been all but forgotten. Yet she came back to him every time he needed her because of just that. Renette wanted to believe in him, believe in the boy that once held her hand at a funeral and cried to her when his parents divorced, who swore that he'd love her for as long as they lived.

And she was jealous of these other people, these men and women that stole his time from her and pushed her to the position of comforter only when Joly needed her. So, she could be mean, because that was her only defence.

"Me too," He mumbled through a mouthful of his military-style dog-tags, things he normally kept hidden beneath his sweaters, but wore constantly in case of sudden death where he needed to be identified. Renette had bought them for him on his sixteenth birthday and had them engraved with his name, date of birth and contact information. Though the latter had changed over seven years, he remained Joly, born on the twenty-fifth of March, nineteen-ninety.

Renette sighed, "I think it might be time for my secret break-up cure, huh?" The bag she had brought was emptied onto the floor, revealing a few DVDs (which she had brought because she had no idea what she would be dealing with) and several bars of chocolate. "Do you still have the blankets in your cupboard?"

Joly nodded, easing himself into a sitting position to look over the unfortunate DVD choices. Renette studied him for little more than a moment, but noticed his gaunt appearance immediately. He was near underweight and too pale to be healthy. It didn't sit right with her – surely his appearance couldn't be a result of today's anguish? She blinked, remembering that she had blankets to fetch.

When she was back in the living room, she pulled chairs to either side of the television and set about hanging blankets; one from over the television to the first chair, from the chair to the sofa, sofa to chair, chair to television and finally a sheet that lay over the top, held in the middle by a precariously placed umbrella.

"A blanket fort," She explained, "Like when we were kids." There was the flicker of a smile on Joly's face as he crawled into the fort, feet dragging behind him and tags clinking together as they dangled from the chain around his neck.

Giving herself a minute to breathe, Renette was surprised to find two hands shoot from the fort and pull her in by her wrists. She knocked Joly onto his back and she fell on the cushions inside. He groaned dramatically, "That hurt more than it should have," and rubbed the ribs that he had fallen on. She laughed at him, but felt the familiar fire of panic when she saw that it had really hurt him. He was grimacing as he continued to massage his side.

But soon enough, they were settled side-by-side as the film played out on the screen. Joly's expression had immediately transformed into one of utter horror and the title sequence played.

_Contagion._

Silence spread around their make-shift fort, the memory of only hours ago already distant as the two old friends slowly settled into comfort with each other. Renette fell asleep quickly, while Joly remained awake, eyes glued to the screen and becoming more anxious as the film went on.

* * *

Renette woke with fifteen minutes of the film to go. She found Joly with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and an empty bottle of hand sanitizer lying at his feet. He was rubbing the remaining sanitizer into his hands vigorously, without caution or any real knowledge of his actions.

"Joly," Renette pulled one of his hands away, running her fingers over the skin of his palm. There, she noticed bruises running up his arms. Black and blue blossoms, shapes of fingerprints on his pale skin. Following her gaze, Joly looked to his arms, goose bumps appearing where her fingers ghosted across the hair of his arms. Confusion. This wasn't right.

"I… I don't know what… they look like fingerprints…"

A gasp escaped Renette's lips and a feeling horror flushed through Joly.

"Get out, we need to see these in the light," Renette commanded him, herself crawling from the blanket fort and turning harshly to her friend. She was terrified, but she couldn't show him. It was easier to stay stotic than to show her fear. Joly followed her slowly, suddenly acutely aware of how hot he felt.

Standing before Renette in the daylight they checked his arms, the bruises looking darker and blacker than in the filtered light of their haven.

"What is it?" Joly's voice trembled terribly, a hundred possible illnesses running through his pre-med mind.

"Take your sweater off,"

He blinked, but pulled the sweater over his head, the cold hitting his burning skin with the force of a canon.

"Oh God, Joly," Renette breathed. He had a huge bruise across his ribs – right where he had fallen only two hours earlier – bruises all down his torso and his back. The panic set in for the both of them now. "You have a fever, I felt it earlier. You're pale and underweight and I can see you're tired…" She swallowed. Hard. "And now the bruises,"

"I had a nosebleed earlier. And yesterday." He whispered, any colour that was left in his face had drained out as he stared, unblinkingly and eyed wide, right at Renette, hoping and maybe praying that she wasn't right in what she was thinking.

But all she did for him was squeeze his hand and clench her eyes shut to stop the tears falling.

"I'm taking you to the doctor right now. Get in the car."

* * *

The doctor's surgery that Renette drove him to was a few miles from campus – she didn't trust the campus doctor with this.

Joly sat in silence, chewing his dog tags and staring fearfully at the white lines of the road ahead. Each passing line made his stomach churn: anticipation, terror.

When they arrived, she swung the car into a parking spot and ran into the surgery, leaving Joly to make his way slowly – ever so slowly, because part of him didn't want to know. If he was sick he'd rather be oblivious. The sterile waiting room smelt strongly of bleach and antiseptic cream. The smell overpowered him – a smell that he usually found comforting, clean, and Joly suddenly found that he needed to be sick.

Renette watched him with the receptionist, both exuding pity. He didn't want their pity – he wanted to not be sick, to go home and be upset that his Musichetta and his Bousset left him, he wanted to watch hour after hour of _Veronica Mars_ and eat ice-cream and then go to bed and sleep for days because he was just so _exhausted_.

But he had to be here, he had to see a doctor who, having now arrived in the waiting room, was watching him throw his guts up into the trash with a solemn expression. Then he motioned for Joly to follow him into the equally clean office, equipped with a plastic-covered 'bed' and various machines. None of those things would be used this time.

This was a diagnosis; Joly told Doctor Stone his symptoms. With each he listed, the Doctors face grew darker.

Fever, tiredness, pale skin, nosebleeds… bruises.

"I'll have to take a blood sample and run some tests…" Doctor Stone mumbled as he prepared a sterile needle for the sample. Joly swallowed hard. This sounded bad, so bad; he wanted to be sick again. In the uncomfortable chair next to him, Renette was wringing her hands together and staring at the doctor.

"… But I think," Doctor Stone looked Joly dead in the eye. There were lines around his forty-something eyes that made Joly think about his dad. "My initial diagnosis, based on your symptoms and gender, would be… would be leukaemia."

Renette's hands dropped to her lap.

Joly squeaked, eyes cast down.

The doctor mumbled his apology, saying that he would give them a moment before he continued with taking the blood sample and left the room, closing the door softly. Joly listened to his footsteps fade away down the corridor, all the while his wide, fearful eyes not moving from the chair the doctor previously occupied.

He stared and stared and stared and he didn't dare breathe. Because this illness was inside of him; it filled him up and it was part of him. This was his own body turning against him, a body that he had tried so hard to keep healthy, and a body that he kept germs away from at all costs.

But he was still sick, his life had still been turned upside down and everything he had ever feared had been thrown at him in the course of one twenty-four hour cycle.

He was sick, and it was serious.

* * *

**This is the first time I have ever felt the need to have an ending authors note, but there are three things I need to clarify.**

**1) This is a one-shot, that ties directly into _Patria is Furry_. The storyline will continue in that multi-chaptered setting, and you'll get to see how it impacts the rest of our beloved Amis.**

**2) I have had this experience. My nan died with osteosarcoma (bone cancer), and my best friend was diagnosed with Leukaemia as Joly was in this story in November of 2011. It's terrifying for the people around those affected; you don't know what to do with yourself.**

**3) A note on the OC, Renette. You get most of her history with Joly in the story, but she's not going to be a major part of anything. There won't be any romantic storyline between her and any of the Amis, least of all Joly. Her role is simply of the comforter.**

**And with that, I hope I haven't broken your heart too much. Roll of the rest of _Patria is Furry_!**


End file.
